A post by Ambassador Behar in Dakar, Nov. 2010

A cool breeze at the end of the day blows down the sandy slope of the village of Mbisau in Senegal. A few dozen women, who are carrying their infants tied to their backs and wearing headscarves, are working bent down in their small plots of land where they are growing organic potatoes and onions. There are 126 women in this TIPA project, which uses advanced Israeli drip irrigation and agricultural techniques. Their project is a part of a broader program of MASHAV (Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation) and the Embassy of Israel in Senegal to combat poverty. The women are pleased. The new engagement in agriculture enables them to earn much needed money and also to deal with their other tasks such as raising their children and cooking. When the sun set and shines its last golden rays for the day on the green fields, the women return home happy and with smiles on their faces.

Gideon Behar,

Ambassador

Embassy of Israel,

Dakar

Cooperation agreement between Israel (MASHAV) and the Organization of American States (OAS)

Israel and the Organization of American States signed a memorandum of understanding consolidating decades of development cooperation.
The agreement signed Monday at OAS headquarters in Washington pledges to advance existing collaboration on education, environment, economic and social development, poverty, gender equity, disaster prevention and relief, agriculture and crisis management. from JTA two days ago.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/05/18/2394852/israel-signs-development-mou-with-oas

Israeli technology and practices for developing countries' farmers

Israeli experts in the field of agriculture gave a seminar on sustainable development of cattle breading within the framework of the joint project UNDP - Mashav - Ministry of Agriculture and Water Management of Uzbekistan. In the end of May leading experts from Israel Ran Solomon, Daniel Werner and Efraim Zuckerman trained a group of Uzbek farmers from Kui-Chirchik district of Tashkent region. The subject of the seminar was cattle rationing, nutrition and forage reserve and its influence on milk productivity. The participants were introduced to modern technologies and innovations in the field of agro chemistry and agronomy. Israeli experts together with representatives of UNDP and the Israeli Embassy in Uzbekistan, visited farms in the Tashkent region and studied fodder growing and implementation of the knowledge attained in training courses in Israel and Uzbekistan in the work of the farmers. During the seminars the experts stressed the importance of a diverse nutritive diet, including barley, triticale, pea and oats to increase productivity of cows. They advised on the proper pressing of silo and bin in order to preserve the correct micro flora. According to the plan of the Joint project on sustainable development of livestock, Israeli experts on design of modern dairy farming and herd books will come to Uzbekistan in order to conduct seminars in June 2009.

The following article was published on 25th of May on the “New Europe” website.
http://www.neurope.eu/articles/94744.php

Israel-Nepal sign agro agreement

Nepal and Israel signed on March 19 in Jerusalem an Agreement on cooperation in the field of agriculture. It was an opportunity for Nepalese Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Mrigendra Kumar Singh Yadav, to visit Israel. The visit also coincided with the celebration of 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

the picture attached is a press article from a local newspaper, Rajdhani.

MASHAV's updates

This last days, MASHAV published updated flyers on the Israeli activities in the domains of agriculture, medicine and public health, education and community & socio-economic develpoment:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/1FE1E5AA-10D7-49BD-BCD5-3678E9874CFC/0/Medicine.pdf

http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/1533F394-4272-4864-B434-A29208517251/0/Agriculture.pdf

http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/6D74BC3A-1111-4927-BD53-2A528716A245/0/CommunityDevelopment.pdf

http://www.mfa.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/E4716D29-6737-494E-B415-7FE378A53738/0/Educationforall.pdf